On January 16 and 17, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) announced two new confirmed indigenous cases of COVID-19 in Taiwan, who are identified as contacts of the prior confirmed case, a doctor from a northern hospital. To prevent nosocomial infections, the Tainan City Government reminds the public to thoroughly implement epidemic prevention and control measures. The city government also requires both medical institutions and clinics to implement infection control measures, personnel health monitoring, triage of patients and zoning, contingency evacuation, and transfer mechanisms.
Our tiered medical system allows major hospitals to focus on caring for acute and severe patients. Tainan City Mayor Huang Wei-che also reminds the citizens to pay attention to the following matters when visiting healthcare facilities:
1. When you feel ill, please visit a family doctor or a nearby clinic for medical treatment, and only transfer to other facilities if the physician deems necessary.
2. Visitors and personnel entering healthcare facilities, including both outpatient and emergency room, must wear a mask at all times and practice hand hygiene.
3. When seeking medical treatment, please explain to the medical staff about your symptoms, travel history, occupation, contact history, and TOCC information; the medical staff conducts triage and guides patients to designated waiting areas base on the information, including travel history, illness severity, and whether one has pneumonia or not.
4. If you have respiratory symptoms when entering the medical facility, use a handkerchief or facial tissue to cover your mouth and nose when you sneeze or cough. If you have sputum or nasal mucus, wrap it in facial tissue and discard it in the trash can.
5. Please keep good hand hygiene habits. Wash your hands before and after seeing a doctor. Thorough wash your hands when they are dirty. If you don’t have access to hand-washing facility, please use alcohol rub sanitizer to disinfect your hands.
The Public Health Bureau reminds medical personnel to strengthen all infection control measures (all staff at medical facilities must check body temperature every day, and if you feel unwell, please immediately visit the COVID-19-designated hospitals). For patients at medical facilities, the staff should thoroughly check their TOCC information. For any issues related to COVID-19 prevention and control, please call the Bureau's epidemic prevention hotline (06-2880180) for further consultation.